For nearly two decades now we haven't seen any innovation in design from makers of Wintel PCs or laptops. Over the last few years it has been solely Apple that was coming out with cool designs - whether it was Mac Mini or Macbook Air. So I was happy to see finally a PC manufacturer investing on design. I am talking here about the new Dell Hybrid desktops. Check them out they don't seem to have compromised on the technical specifications either which seems to include everything you may want in an average desktop PC - Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, Vista OS, 320GB HDD, DVD Writer, 5 USB, IEEE 1394, Ethernet, Wi-Fi and more. What is very cool is the availability of a Eco-Friendly Bamboo casing.

I wish this is just a beginning of design innovation coming from all the competitors in the Wintel PC world (Dell, Lenovo and HP) and we will see some new form factors in laptops as well.

I had written earlier about Microsoft Surface, but today I got a chance to play with it in person for sometime. I am in Redmond, WA this week and was visiting one of the Microsoft offices where they had kept a Surface computer for demo. Surface is one cool technology that you got to use for getting a good feel. It definitely has great potential of changing the way we interact with computers.

For years, I seem to have a love and hate experience with HP Printers especially with the accompanying software. With the centralized laser printers in my office things are normally OK, you give a print command it prints. The issues are only with the All In One Printers - should we be calling them super smart printers?.

I use dedicated HP All-In-One Printers (Photosmart 7288 and 6188) at my work and at my home. While I love the HP software for scanning, I am at loss on few other things.

• Why does the installation need to take so much for installing a simple scanner and printer software?.
• Every time I turn on the PC why should the HP software keep checking for updates - is scanner and printer so cutting edge that you need daily updates for new technologies?
• In Vista with UAC turned on, every time when it checks for updates it pops up the UAC elevated privileges dialog for the HPUpdate.exe program. My wife is always at loss on why this comes every time she logs in?.
• Frequently the HP software looses the networked printer. It says "No supported device can be found". May be it is users' fault or some configuration changes that was done. The way to resolve it is to get your installation media (or downloaded driver file) and run the installation again. In the installation dialog you see "Add a device" option (see the image on right). When the application can't find a device why can't application (Solution Center or Photosmart essential) itself display an option to search for a network printer and add it instead of requiring a rerun of the installation. It is not available today.
• When I rerun the installation today for this problem it displays the dialog shown below. I was puzzled for few minutes. Then pressing "OK" made it run fine. Why can't the software first check whether the necessary files are found in the path (that it anyway seems to detect) then if the files are not found display this dialog.

• The last item I have is on Paper Jams. When a paper jam happens, the printer says clear the jam and press "OK". But I am at loss on how to clear the paper jam - there is absolutely no instruction, and the space in the paper tray is so small that you can't insert your fingers and pull the paper out. 

Recently I bought a XBOX 360 from USA to be used a Media Extender. The AC Adapter was 110V and surprisingly unlike your laptop/mobile chargers this doesn't support multiple voltages. So to connect the XBOX in India I needed a new AC Adapter that works in 220V. I checked in my other XBOX 360 that was purchased in India and that had a 220V rating and Amazon US Store carried the 110V as an item to buy from Microsoft. So I assumed I can buy the AC Adapter locally, but bad luck. No shop (brick 'n' mortar or online) carried the AC Adapter alone separately in India. They redirected me to XBOX service centres, who said only on production of the faulty one they will give me a new one.  I wrote to XBOX 360 support, surprisingly I got a reply from them the next business day. I asked for a new 220V AC Adapter, they replied that XBOX 360 bought in USA won't work in India due to voltage and DVD Region differences. I said clearly I understand that and I take the ownership, but they kept insisting that they don't support voltage convertors (which I never wanted) and they don't support using USA XBOX 360 in India.

We have received your email and as I understand, you would like to know if there is an available power converter that can be used with your Xbox 360 console bought from the United States (110V). I apologize for the inconvenience.

Venkat, I regret to inform you that Microsoft and Xbox do not have a first-party power converter for the console's power supply. Although there may be third-party power converter sold that might be able to address the issue, we cannot guarantee the performance of the said items.  Furthermore, use of third-party or unapproved accessories with your console may cause performance issues which would void the warranty of your Xbox 360 console. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

Finally before giving up, I went to Chennai's Electronic Heaven "Ritchie Street" which is a miniature version of Delhi's Nehru Place/Lajphat Rai market or Tokyo's Akihabara. There I found a new XBOX 360 220V AC Adapter for Rs.1600. This was without any warranty, but when connected worked beautifully and my problem was solved (fingers crossed). This was much better than having a separate 220V to 110V convertor, as this was a native AC to XBOX DC Voltage conversion.

I never thought I will buy an Apple Mac as my primary PC (laptop) but I did just that today. After nearly a month of thinking, I finally bought a Macbook Air to replace my aging Sony Vaio TX57GN laptop. The machine looks irresistibly beautiful.

I bought it from the Apple Store in Bellevue Square, the whole experience was smooth. A floor person did the entire transaction from his handheld (it looked like it ran Windows CE) including Credit Card charging, signature capture. Since I have been to Apple online before, he told they had my email Id and will send me an email receipt and not waste paper by printing it. WOW that was impressive.

Now look at the cool bag (below) they gave to carry all the stuffs that I bought including the Air and its accessories.

And look at the sleek boxes (below). Simple, clean and efficient - I could open all of them with my bare hands and never needed a scissor.

I then wanted to do the envelope test with both the Macbook Air and my Sony Vaio, both passed it well. Sony Vaio going in with room to spare on the width but less impressive than the Macbook when it comes to thickness.

I started used it for 5 minutes now - will keep you posted on how it goes. One thing is sure I will install Windows Vista in this in few days

Update: After I started using it I found that the "Delete" key was stuck and not functioning properly. I visited the Apple Store at Bellevue Square, WA again and I was scheduled a time slot in the evening 4PM to meet a "Genius". The sales person simply refused to even see the machine, their argument being once sold we got to contact Apple Service over phone (or) schedule an appointment with Genius. So going for the 3rd time to the Apple store I went to the "Genius" bar, where they identified the problem to be DOA (Defect on Assembly I suppose) and promptly replaced with a new one. They said since Macbook Air is a new machinery it takes some time for the assembling machines to settle and perfect the process. Anyways, I was glad they at least changed the unit before my return trip to India.

One thing that surprised me is that the Apple Store at Bellevue Square, WA being crowded all the time. During my three visits there every time I saw around 50 people in the store. This was the first time I am seeing a computer/electronics store in a mall crowded. I guess Apple has perfected the "Consumer" magic.

My corporate IT (Exchange Server) enforces security policy on all mobile devices that connect to it. So my phone is locked by a PIN. When I connect the Windows Mobile Phone (HTC S710) to PC, Vista displays a dialog box (like the one below). This dialog box certainly has useful information that needs my attention, but I am irritated on the fact it doesn't have a minimize/close button. Absolutely no way to get rid of the window other than keying the PIN in the device or disconnecting the device.

I feel this to be a classic case of bad user interface design.

One thing I hate about buying Electronics (Computer accessories as well) and Compact Discs (VCDs, DVDs) is the chore of cutting open the plastic packaging without hurting your fingers or the product. I just don't understand why the manufacturers want to put so much plastic on the covers with the idea of hurting you. If the idea is to protect (RFID tagging) from stealing and to have a frame for hanging/displaying then I am sure there are better ways. Ways that are environmentally friendly, more than environment friendly to the poor consumer who paid money. This is true especially for CDs that you buy from a Music chain (In India Music World, Landmark, etc.) where apart from the manufacturer cover the chains put RFID in a layer, then a layer of plastic to protect the RFID and so on., finally you end up having to cut open 3 layers before you can reach to the music. Similar pain for Electronic items, say a Mouse/Mobile Charger, etc. where you need a steady and 200 pound fingers to cut that thick layer of plastic before reaching to the product.  I guess the idea is to make it difficult for you to reach to the product, so that you cannot use it. Obviously a product still in the box, won't go bad and you won't call for support. Smart idea of electronics companies to save money especially with their margins dwindling all the time.

The next packaging item I hate is the sharp (metal) pins used in Shirts (Menswear). I can understand the idea is to have the shirt folds stay in place, so that the shirts while in the shelf have a nice look. Here again you have safer ways to do it like Paper Clips (Gem Clips). Apart from being dangerous to remove without hurting your fingers they in some cases damage the very shirt they are meant to enhance the appearance. Also these pins could be hazardous in countries like India where dump yards are often visited by Cattle's looking for food and scavengers looking for reusable items that could be sold.   

Finally, the packaging item I hate the most because I have to deal with it everyday is the Stapler Pins used in envelopes by courier companies. I am not sure whether anywhere else in the world, courier companies stapler the routing receipt with the envelopes they carry. Removing these Stapler Pins even by using the back of Stapler machine is tricky and most times you end up damaging the cheque or the document that is inside the envelope. Can't they paste it instead?.

Read the earlier part of this project here where I talked about the Digital Conversion of VCD/DVD and sharing in XBox.

After all the Proof of Concept, I decided it was time to go full time Digital. Bought new hardware for my house. One was a high-end desktop where I plan to do the conversions and regular PC usage. The second was for server role, where I had two 500GB HDD Mirrored for storing all my Digital Media files and sharing them. I then converted few dozen of VCD and DVDs into Nero AVC (MPEG4) format with the new desktop in few days.

I tried in the server machine, first Windows Home Server but that didn't the driver for Mirroring H/W that I had), then Windows Server 2003 but that didn't support installation of Zune Client Software, after that thought Windows XP SP2 will be the best but that didn't allow Zune sharing to be visible in XBOX whatever I tried. So I had to resort to Windows Vista SP1. Installed Media Center Extension that went through smoothly but my main requirement was to have Zune Network Sharing working so that all my Photos, Music & Videos are available for playback at my XBOX 360. These two articles have step by step instructions needed for a normal setup:

• How to configure the Zune software to share content from your Zune collection to an Xbox 360 console on a home network
• Listen to Music, View Pictures, and Watch Videos on your Xbox 360 Console

I had bought Norton 360 that contains Antivirus, Firewall and Antispyware. The firewall configuration was pathetic in Norton 360 so I switched it off and turned to Vista's default firewall. I installed and easily got SQUEEZEBox music sharing working. Zune Network Sharing was a big hurdle to cross, what ever I tried the videos and photos were not visible from XBOX. After several hours of trying I figured out the way to make it work.

1. Create a new user exclusive to run Zune Client Software, call it say "ZuneUser" make it administrator in Vista
2. Switch off User Access Control (UAC), this was the biggest problem cause
3. Reset all security settings for the drive/folders where you have your media files (Give Read/Execute for ZuneUser)
4. Go to Zune Client Software, configure your monitoring folders for media
5. Enable Network Sharing, give it a name and tick Music, Video & Photos
6. Go to Services Applet, replace the user account for the Zune Network Sharing (ZuneNSS) service from Network Service to ZuneUser.
7. Restart the ZuneNSS service
8. Give some time for monitoring job to pickup files
9. Go to XBOX 360 and look for your media files and play them

Nowadays, with the poor QoS of Telcos in India many users are forced to carry more than one phone. Some are doing it so that they can separate their personal and official calls. For me in all my years of having a mobile phone right from the first Motorola brick phone when a single call costed Rs.16 to now,  I never carried two mobiles at the same time. The first time I did that was this Tuesday when I travelled down to Delhi for a business meeting, and it turned to be a complete disaster. The idea of two connections (Vodafone & BSNL) was to tackle a problem I have been having in all Delhi trips in the last 12 months. Whenever I was in Delhi roaming from my Vodafone (Hutch) connection I couldn't dial a BSNL Landline (044) number, everything else works fine including CellOne numbers in Chennai.

After I landed in Delhi Airport I tried switching on one phone after other and both failed.

• First was my regular phone (HTC S710) which was continuously rebooting itself on the welcome screen with the only time it booted was when I removed the SIM card (so what good is a phone without a SIM card). 
• Second was Dopod 720W (a.k.a HTC S610) which showed up a dialog box saying something like "Repeated attempts to unlock failed, to ensure this was intended, Press A1B2C3". And as soon as I press the first key to do this, it popped up another dialog-box saying "Enter your device PIN to unlock and press done key". Interesting user experience of having one modal dialog-box over another on a device with no Stylus or ability to switch windows. Adding to my woes here, the done key was disabled. So even after I entering the correct PIN there was no way for me to press a disabled "Done" key. I wonder how this version of Windows Mobile 5.x software ever passed its test cases?.

I was left with a fully useless phone and a 50% working phone - with the Dopod 720W allowing me to receive calls only. No amount of reboots or anything worked with both phones.  That's when I realized how important Mobile phones have become for business productivity. I managed to complete two of my planned meetings earlier so I had ample time for a third but I couldn't schedule it or for that matter could not even call my cab driver from lounge. 

When I came back to Chennai Vishwak's mobile team gave me these options:

• For the HTCS710, do you have a micro SD, if yes, can you remove and then try.
• For both the phones to reset to manufacturer defaults, press 'power', 'left softkey', 'right softkey' simultaneously when the phone is powered down.

I tried both. For S710 the problem turned to be in the micro SD, once I removed it the device booted fine. The same Micro SD is working on a PC, so I am wondering can't a device on finding a problem with SD can't it just timeout and not load the module and proceed?. For Dopod 720W after resetting to manufacturers default, everything was working fine.

I am strongly tempted to throw my HTC devices out (I wonder why Microsoft is not investing on designing a good phone themselves), go out and buy my all time favourite - the rock solid, dependable Nokia Communicator in its new avator (E90). I am giving S710 one more chance as I don't want to waste my investment of Rs.16,500 in just 5 months. 

In the end, the moral turns out that you should have a simple, low-end Nokia phone  always as a backup with you for those moments when the smartphones behave stupidly. The phone should have minimum software, no GPRS, no Camera, just plain old Voice and SMS. And for me an old Nokia 2310 in the office fitted the bill fine. Wish me good luck with that.

I have a Nikon D80 camera and for best results I like to store the photos I take in Nikon's Raw file format (.NEF). The problem with this format is that very few programs know how to handle it correctly & fully.

Windows: If you want to view the files in Windows you need to install the plug-ins from Nikon, which installs the appropriate DLLs into Windows. With that in place you can open and view the files just like JPGs and GIFs in Windows Explorer. But in Windows Vista (Windows Photo Gallery or Live Photo Gallery) there is no option to convert the files from NEF to any other formats.

Adobe: At my laptop I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and this has no plug-ins to open NEF (Nikon Raw) files, so I can't use the batch file conversion option of PS Elements. At my work PC I have Adobe Photoshop CS3 which supports opening of NEF format, but its batch conversion doesn't support conversion to JPG. I can't record a new action to do this, because in CS3 the RAW files are opened with a popup window (Camera Raw) which cannot be controlled through actions. I am able to convert individual files using Camera Raw of CS3 but batch conversion of multiple files (Nikon Raw files) at once doesn't seem to be possible with Adobe products out-of-box. 

Picasa: Google Picasa supports viewing of Nikon Raw files. Picasa also has the ability to convert the files to JPG while uploading it to Web. But it doesn't seem to have the option of converting a folder containing NEF files to JPG files and store them locally.

Irfanview: Finally, I turned to an old favourite of mine. Irfanview, this is a free software that allows viewing, editing of multiple file formats and supports slidesshow creation. I downloaded the base product and its plug-ins extension. With the plug-ins installed, Irfanview was able to open NEF files and using its batch conversion applet I was able to convert in seconds all my NEF files I had into JPEG files.

I got the first phase of my pilot program to have my house moved to Digital Media done. I thought the toughest part will be the purchase(choice), installation and wiring of the hardware but it turned out to be the easiest part. I got my SqueezeBox connected through wireless and playing audio (WMA/MP3) from my PC seamlessly, my XBOX 360 connected through Ethernet to my PC with the media shared using Windows Media Player 11/Zune Player Sharing. Windows Media Player (or equivalent Zune) sharing was much better and easier to setup and use than Windows Media Center especially since I didn't want Live TV through this setup at this phase.

I wanted the digital media files to be playable with my XBOX 360 and with Zune Player (so that I can watch/hear on the move). The toughest part was finding a software that will rip (copy) the media from the Video CDs and DVDs that I owned. This was the main motive behind buying the XBox 360, so that I can protect the CDs from my son scratching while trying to put it in the DVD player. Audio conversion from Audio CDs was easiest with Windows Media Player doing a great job in converting it to WMA or MP3 - both of the formats played well with XBOX & Zune. Video was the most difficult. First because of the DVD Copy Protection and then finding a reliable software for doing the copying to PC. 

DVD Copy protection

I don't understand this at all. Why should the Media houses treat me (a paying customer) like a criminal when all I want to do is to convert a legally bought content to a format that is convenient for me to store and watch. On top of this is stupid DVD Region code. When I am allowed to legally buy a DVD from any country I visit during my travel, why can't I watch it in my home DVD Player. Adding to the woe is the situation in India where DVDs are sold in both Region 2 and Region 5 codes with one not playing on the players with the other mark. An instance was the Inconvenient Truth DVD Indian Edition from Saregama that I bought recently was Region 2 whereas as per DVD Region Code chart it should have been Region 5 for India.  Because of these stupidness of the technology used, I have to rely on software that will overcome the protection and copy the media to the harddisk.

For this task I found DVD Decrypter (shown in right) to be the best. Don't waste your money by buying any of the software that claims to remove automatically the CSS copy protection. I have tried almost the top 15 software on the Internet and all of them are not worth the trouble and don't even come close to the reliability, quality and speed of free DVD Decrypter. Only challenge will be to find a reliable site to download the software since it is banned in few countries, Wikipedia and Google might help you on the search.  After using DVD Decrypter I am ready to the next step. Note: I tried softwares that claims to do both the removal of copy protection and ripping to MP4/WMV but they were produced output videos files that were pathetic quality and unfriendly to use.

Encoding Software

After downloading and trying nearly a dozen software from the Internet I finally settled down to Nero Recode. Almost all of them had one limitation or other. Remember I wanted the output to be played both in my Zune and XBox 360 not a easy combination.

• First was Windows Media Encoder did a reasonable job but was very slow and didn't work well with DVDs.
• Convert2Zune  - this was a free script from my fellow Regional Director Vinod Unny. This uses Windows Media Encoder as the backend and had the same drawbacks of that, except that it automated the steps.
• Next was Video VLC Media Player - this was the only reliable software that does both removal of CSS and encoding to WMV well, but the downside it was very slow in its conversion.
• PQDVD - I bought this based on recommendation from my industry colleagues to convert videos to Zune format. Though it initially seemed to work well with DVDs, I soon realized it was unreliable and pathetic for VideoCDs. 50% of the time it produced videos that had audio out of sync by several minutes!
• Nero Recode - Here comes Nero Recode. The software doesn't remove copy protection, but once you have crossed that bridge using DVD Decrypter there is no software that comes close to the speed and reliability of Nero Recode. Couple of points I learned that you need to be before you can start using it.
  • If you choose the profile as default Nero Digital Profile the output file doesn't work with Zune and XBOX. It produces MPEG4 files that uses proprietary Nero Digial Codecs that works only with Nero Digital Certified Media players - obviously Zune and XBOX are out of that. Initially I gave up Nero Recode because of this, but later learned the next point from a forum post.
  • You will have to choose the second profile in Nero Recode called "Nero Digital AVC" which produces industry standard MPEG4 files. The output files thus produced play natively with Zune Player. To make them play in XBOX 360, you need to do two things. First is to use Zune Player Sharing option over Windows Media Player Sharing. Second, go to XBOX 360 and play one of the files - it will automatically prompt to download an optional media update (below screenshot). Once you download and install it, your XBOX 360 can now play seamlessly the MPEG4 files.

Problem solved, case closed. Everyone lived happily ever after

I use a Windows Smartphone (HTC s710). Few weeks back while attending a professional presentation I took down some notes and saved it in the SMS "Draft" folder. Today I wanted the text available in  my PC so that I can use the contents, I didn't want to retype the whole text (it was few SMS messages long). SMSing to my same number won't work & Windows Smartphone OS doesn't have a copy-paste option - had it got that I could copied and pasted it as an email.

Finally I found a way, I have a PCMCIA Internet Data Card in my laptop from Tata Indicom. I sent the SMS to that number, then opened the data card software which showed all the SMS (as seen in the right hand side image) in a textbox, I copied it from there.

Isn't this a neat solution?. Only drawback was that I had to pay for 4-5 SMS messages though

Over the years I have tried with little success various models of Wireless input devices (Keyboard and Mouse), right from the early Logitech desktop sets. I see only one advantage of a wireless over the wired models is the convenience of giving it to the person on the other side of the table for a quick demo. Most of the wireless models anyway have wires for their base station and you need to keep the base station almost touching the keyboard for any good signal reception.

I am particular about ergonomics and I prefer keyboards that have a natural curve for hand comfort with a good play of the keyboard buttons as I type pretty fast. So when I saw the new "Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000" few months back it seemed to fit my bill - came with a small USB Dongle as a base station and had ergonomic styling. I got the desktop set few weeks back and been using it, but I found the keyboard to be unresponsive most of the times. I was using the native drivers that came with Vista x64 and didn't install the CD that came with the desktop set. As a try, I downloaded and installed the OEM drivers and software from Microsoft site and now it seems to be working perfectly well. The software also gives you additional tabs with customization features in the control panel applets. Download drivers for Windows Vista x64 from here.

One thing I keep wondering, why are the names for products from Microsoft always too long and confusing. Look at the names below, I guess only Microsoft marketing can come up with such creative inspiring names

• Microsoft Natural Wireless Ergonomic Keyboard 7000 (Natural Wireless - hmm, I didn't know all the other wireless technologies we used were all artificial)
• Microsoft Natural Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 (the keyboard was Wireless Ergonomic, but the mouse is Wireless laser - does this mean the mouse is not ergonomic but only laser?)

In MSN today, I saw this article on PARADE Magazine picks its must-have technology for 2007. What I liked about this list was it was yet another list of Mobile Phones & Music Players. Not all of them were exciting, but I learned of few new interesting gadgets: Solar Charger for Cellphones, Biometric Door Lock that opens on fingerprints, HP Presto printer that does email without a PC, Ooma VoIP phone & Smartshopper that records your grocery list and prints it.

The article unfortunately doesn't have links to the product manufacturers so you had to Google for each of them.

Over the years, I have tried with different operating systems (Windows 3.1, 98, 2000, XP, Vista), newer & faster CPUs, different hardware brands (WinTV, Pinnacle, Aver), newer interfaces (PCI, USB) but I was never successful in getting a stable working setup of TV playing in a PC. At one point, it looked like I was having a curse against getting a TV Tuner working on my PC. In all cases my hardware exceeded the manufacturer's minimum required specification. So in the last two years, I have put TV Tuner in my list of technology "hypes" whose time haven't arrived yet.

With this background I tried again and I bought a Pinnacle Hybrid TV Tuner Kit (USB) for Vista during my Singapore trip. The minimum specification said Vista Home Premium/Ultimate (32bit) and it was Certified for Vista, this meant they have drivers for Vista. When I came back to my office, I tried to install it in my Windows Vista x64 Enterprise OS machine with 8GB RAM. I got the beta driver for Vista x64 from Pinnacle Support site, the card got installed but there was no Media Application to play the TV signal.

Windows Vista Enterprise x64 to Ultimate x64
After some search, I realized that I needed either Vista Home Premium or Ultimate because only those two Vista Editions include Windows Media Center that was needed to play the TV signal from Pinnacle tuner. I thought this should be simple, since Vista allows easy upgrade between editions, but it turns out officially you cannot upgrade Vista Enterprise to anything else. I found a hack here to do it, by tricking the setup to treat Enterprise as Business edition. Instead, I decided to reinstall Windows Vista. I did that and got Windows Vista x64 Ultimate working.

Pinnacle x64 Driver from Windows Update
When I now connected the TV Tuner USB Device, Windows Update detected the device, installed the correct driver for Pinnacle PCTV 330e and got initialised. I followed the instructions given in Pinnacle manual, connected the IR Blaster (this sticks in front of your set-top box and replays the IR instructions of set-top box remote) to IR Receiver and then the IR Receiver to a free USB port.
(IR Receiver / Remote sensor receives the signal from the Media Center remote control and relays it to the Media Center PC. When you plug the IR blaster/ control cable into the remote sensor and the set-top box, then the remote sensor also relays the signal from the PC to the set-top box)

Windows Media Center shows only TV Tuner as Signal source
I connected the Tata Sky DTH satellite set-top box's composite video/audio (RCA jack) output to Pinnacle Tuner. I ran Windows Media Center software, unfortunately it detected only the TV Tuner as an input source and refused to recognize the Satellite (Composite) as an available input source. Taking the suggestion from documentation for setting a set-top box from Microsoft site I ensured the IR blaster was connected. Still it didn't detect my composite video signal. For a strange reasoning best known only to Microsoft, Media Center doesn't enable input sources other than TV Tuner unless it detects the IR blaster. But in my case even with IR Blaster installed correctly, it didn't show up.

I tried the TV Tuner in two other Vista 32bit (x86) machines:

• Dell Vostro with 4GB RAM where I had the same problem of not being able to select composite signal source (Dell support said they don't support Media Center with Vostro series)
• Lenovo Desktop (with 1GB RAM) where it worked perfectly. Windows Media Center on first start, automatically detected the IR Blaster (allowed me to even control the Tata Sky set-top box successfully) and let me select composite as signal source.

It looks like Windows Media Center/Pinnacle Hybrid tuner doesn't support more than 1GB RAM for Satellite input. Strange!

I wrote to Pinnacle Support asking them on how to get the product working with Vista x64 Media Center. They said this is a MCE question so you should write to Microsoft. Filling a case with Microsoft PSS which they refused to take it as it is a how-to question and also it is a device capability issue. Writing back to Pinnacle, they promptly replied that the product is not supported in Vista x64 - "The tuner kit for Windows Media Center will only work on a 32 bit version. There is no update for a 64 bit version yet. We are sorry for any inconvenience the product has brought your".  This was surprising as Windows Update has a driver for the product and Pinnacle themselves have a beta driver.

So it was time to ditch Windows Media Center and do it on our own. After some research I found out Nero has a TV Tuner Player software - I am big fan and loyal user of Nero for years. I downloaded the trial of Nero 8 and after few configuration steps I got the device working.

Nero 8.0 configuration with Satellite Signal and Pinnacle Hybrid Tuner
The step to configure involves the following four steps:

Step 1: Launch Nero MediaHome software and then the "TV Wizard"

Step 2: "Pinnacle 330e/880e Device" as Video Device (you will see two entries, the other one is for TV Tuner Signal) and "Composite" as Video Input

Step 3: Launch Nero Home, select Video in Video and TV applet

Step 4: Scroll down and select Composite as the video to play

Finally, you will see this player with signal from Tata Sky working fine:

Note: If you are planning a TV Tuner card for Vista x64, before you buy it please visit the Microsoft HCL site to ensure you buy a hardware that is certified for x64.

My everyday work laptop is a lightweight Sony Vaio TX57GN around 1.25Kg, having a Core Solo CPU, 1.5GB RAM, 4200RPM HDD, Vista its speed is sub-optimal and I can only use it for email and browsing. Even then I am not complaining and actually I love it especially on my travels. This changes when I have to do demos (customer presentations or Microsoft events) I got to run multiple virtual machines and at that time CPU muscle, RAM and Speed are crucial. So few months back I decided to buy a second laptop for demos alone and eventually settled down on Dell Vostro 1400. That was the time (August '07) Dell had introduced Vostro series in USA, the price of USD 1740 (with taxes) for the configuration was attractive so I immediately purchased it and got it through one of my colleagues coming to India.

Dell Vostro 1400 configuration

• Vostro 1400, Intel Core 2 Duo T5470, 1.6GHz, 800Mhz FSB 2M L2 Cache
• 14.1 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD
• 4GB, DDR2, 667MHz
• Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset
• Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
• 160GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
• Windows Vista Business    
• 24X COMBO CD-RW/DVD for Vostro
• Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g
• Warranty Support, 2 Year Extended

The laptop scores good on Vista Benchmarks and performs well with multiple VPCs and Vista Aero interface. Dell shipped the laptop (strangely) with Vista 32Bit OS, so it showed only 3.5GB of RAM. This week I decided to upgrade the machine to Vista x64, so I got it formatted and installed Vista Ultimate x64. Now the laptop shows 4GB RAM, but most of the devices (as expected) were not installed with drivers. Luckily Wi-Fi worked and after running Windows Update which download 150MB of 42+ updates and a reboot, most of the devices including Graphics card got installed. The Ethernet card proved tr